Dunlop SP Sport Maxx Makes it Two in a Row - Winning Wheels Tyre Test

Dunlop tyres have helped emphasise through the media over the last few days the extreme importance of the tyre as a component of road safety.

The iconic tyre brand was victorious in the brand new Wheels Tyre Test 2007and Dunlop also featured strongly in last Thursday's A Current Affair on Channel Nine which stressed to the consumer that the tyres fitted to the car could be the difference between life and death. A Current Affair test a range of tyres on a controlled race track to see which ones performed better in wet conditions. Motoring expert, John Cadogen who organised the Wheels Tyre Test and featured on tyre safety piece on A Current Affair explained: "Most people simply don't understand how critical the capability of those four contact patches is to safety and performance, or how dramatically it drops off with the cheapies."

The same car was driven by the same driver in the same wet conditions. The only difference was the tyres fitted to the car. The driver then performed an emergency stop in front of cardboard cut-outs of a family. The premium Dunlop tyres proved their worth stopping two metres before the family. The first cheaper Korean tyre took an extra car length to stop before the second stopped a full seven metres ahead of the Dunlops . The cheapest unnamed Chinese tyre then took a full nine metres to stop.

Dunlop was also victorious in the Wheels Tyre Test 2007 which also stressed once again the importance of quality tyres. Off the back of last year's success with Dunlop SP Sport Maxx coming first, this year the tyre made it two in a row winning the small car category.

Wheels is Australia's longest running and best selling motoring magazine with a readership averaging 409,000 readers every issue. The magazine's Car of the Year and annual tyre tests are respected as the most credible in the industry. In the large car segment the 245/45 18 Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 was victorious on the Holden VE SS which was used to conduct the test.

Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 beat the more expensive Bridgestone Potenza excelling in Wet Braking and the Wet Hot Lap. The small car used a Volkswagen Golf DSG for the testing fitted with 205/55 16 tyres. Here Dunlop SP Sport Maxx beat Pirelli to the post, particularly excelling in the Dry Braking and the Wet Hot Lap disciplines.

Just to highlight the sort of messages that this tyre test communicates to consumers, writer Cadogen explained: "You're not just buying quality, you're buying performance - and because you don't extract maximum performance very frequently on the road, what you get in practice is a tremendous margin of safety, considering the alternative. Premium tyres cost more, but they are very cheap insurance."

Craig Scher, Brand Manager for Dunlop explains: "Quality is long remembered when price is forgotten. The average person on the street perceives the tyre as just black and round. These independent tyre tests really hit home the differentiation between different products and the technology that is incorporated into premium tyres. However, as these tests prove, the differences involved in the quality of a tyre are more critical than most products. For a relatively small extra cost, these four little rubber contact patches on the road really could be the difference between life and death."